state budget
Gov. Cooper remains excluded from negotiations, but some members of his party are trying to change that Rep. Garland Pierce said his support for the $25.7 billion budget written by House Republicans is rooted in a meeting between local elected officials from the Democrat’s rural district and House Speaker Tim Moore and his staff where the local leaders laid out their budget hopes.
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The North Carolina House finally approved a proposed budget bill last week for the fiscal year that began six weeks ago. Now comes a period of negotiation with the Senate, which passed its version a few weeks before, and after that one hopes, some measure of legitimate give and take with Gov. Cooper.
...House Democrats during a committee meeting Tuesday questioned the lack of full funding for programs needed to comply with a consent order in the long-running court case on public education. The questions arose as the House budget committee went through details of the $25.7 billion proposal unveiled by the body's Republican majority. More debate is expected Wednesday and Thursday before the House votes on the plan.
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By far the single most important legislation with which North Carolina elected leaders grapple each year is the state budget bill. The budget details how the state will spend tens of billions of tax dollars on hundreds of core public services and structures and includes scores of other large and important changes to state law. Virtually all other priorities at the General Assembly pale in comparison.
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Differences in HHS proposals indicate House and Senate negotiators have much work ahead House budget subcommittee leaders released big pieces of their spending proposal Thursday, as the chamber began speeding toward passage of its full budget. Still to come are salary increases or bonuses the House will propose for teachers and state employees.
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PFAS contamination found in both and Jones and Orange counties Maysville, which sits on the rim of the Croatan National Forest, is home to 1,000 people — about half of whom rely on the town’s sole drinking water well. And that well, according to a brief sentence in the both the House and Senate versions of the state budget, is contaminated.
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